The international community must end Israel’s impunity for its actions in the West Bank, Francesca Albanese, UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Occupied Palestine, said during a discussion of the situation in Palestine with member states of the UN Human Rights Council at the 52nd session, her words are given in the press release of the organization.
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“The wave of deadly violence that has engulfed the occupied West Bank since the beginning of this year is the inexorable consequence of an invading and repressive occupation with no end in sight and a culture of lawlessness and impunity that Israel has nurtured and enjoyed,” Albanese said.
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She added that over the course of 90 days, Israeli military raids on Palestinian territories have left 80 dead and more than 2,000 injured, while 13 Israelis have died.
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“Israel, emboldened by the lack of meaningful intervention, has solidified its aggressive and repressive occupation, with member states offering little more than symbolic condemnation <…> and legal scholars engaged in theoretical debate,” the UN Special Rapporteur said.
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Albanese calls on the international community to stop “tolerating” Israel’s violations of international law for nearly a century.
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Since the beginning of 2023, the situation in the West Bank, especially in the cities of Jenin and Nablus, has become very complicated due to the ongoing raids by the Israeli army against the Palestinians.
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Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen accused the UN of bias over a statement by the UN Security Council, which expressed concern about Israel’s plans to expand Jewish settlements in the West Bank.
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In the document, the Security Council reiterated that Israel’s continued settlement activity poses a dangerous threat to the viability of a two-state solution within the 1967 borders.
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Settlement activity in the West Bank, as well as in East Jerusalem, which the Palestinian National Authority considers its capital, is one of the main problems in Israel’s relations with the international community. In addition, these steps serve as one of the obstacles in the search for peace with the Palestinians, who perceive such expansion as a policy of consolidating the Jewish state in the conquered territories.
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The Palestinians, as part of the now suspended peace process with Israel, are demanding that the future borders between the two sovereign states follow the lines that existed before the 1967 Six-Day War, with a possible exchange of territories. They hope to create their own state on the West Bank of the Jordan River and in the Gaza Strip, and they want to make East Jerusalem their capital. Israel refuses to return to the borders of 1967, and even more so to share Jerusalem with the Arabs, which has already declared its eternal and indivisible capital.
